


still in sickness (but the roles are reversed)

by WattStalf



Series: cos your love's got the best of me (baby, you're making a fool of me) [15]
Category: Baccano!
Genre: Breathplay, But it's like almost there i guess?, Choking, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, No Smut, Sick Character, eh idk anymore, general warning for ye olde death mentions and killing mentions, ladd is a fucking pissbaby when hes sick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-04
Updated: 2016-09-04
Packaged: 2018-08-13 01:32:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7956955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>I'm fucking dying.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	still in sickness (but the roles are reversed)

**Author's Note:**

> A sequel to in sickness and in health (and everywhere in between), here comes the riveting tale of Ladd catching Lua's cold but somehow having it worse than her and being a fucking baby about it.  
> Basically, I'm on vacation and I got sick the day we left, but it didn't hit me hard until yesterday when I had a fever and shit, and all I could do was keep positive and turn my suffering into art. And make Ladd suffer, my favorite past time.

“I'm fucking dying,” Ladd wails- or it would be more of a wail, but his voice is muffled by his pillow and he's only got a fraction of his normal energy, so it comes out sounding more like a moan. And he does feel like he's dying, even if it really is quite the exaggeration, and even if it is sort of his fault that he's in this condition in the first place.

Some of the fault rests with Lua as well, and she does feel bad for that, though she can't help but be a little put out by the nearly constant whining. When she was sick, he had doted on her endlessly, terrified that her cold would take a turn for the worse and steal her life before he had the chance, but she had been the one to toy with him and seduce him, so between the two of them, it's no wonder he ended up catching her cold. She just doesn't remember it being quite so bad for her.

“I really, really, really think this is the end,” he goes on, lifting his head from his pillow to try to speak more clearly. “I can't believe that after everything, this is going to be the end of me, and I'm gonna fucking _die_ today!” His voice cracks a bit as he whines, and she winces.

“You probably need to be quiet,” she murmurs, “before you lose your voice.”

Ladd looks up at her, his eyes widening. His face is a little bit flushed and his lips are cracked and his vision seems unfocused. She doesn't remember feeling bad enough to warrant so much complaining, but looking at him now, she starts to think he might actually have it worse than she did. “But I don't...” he trails off and then never finishes his sentence, laying his head back down in a daze.

After a moment of silence, however, his head pops back up and he says, “I'm not gonna let this beat me, you know that? I don't care...I don't care what happens, I'm not going down to something this stupid, and I'm not going to...” His eyes really go out of focus for a second, before he resumes his sentence. “I'm not going to let  _you_ down like that either!”

“You're not dying,” she says, trying to keep the exasperation out of her voice.

“Goddamn right,” he mumbles, laying back down and turning on his side, so that his face is not buried in his pillow. She sits beside his bed, watching him and listening to him cough and sniff and whine. “Say...you should get out of here...don't want _you_ catching this. I'm fucking dying, I don't want this to kill you too...”

She sighs, and takes a moment before she replies, making sure to leave any traces of irritation out of her voice; he can't help being sick, she reminds herself. “I already had it, remember? I won't be able to just catch it back from you.”

“That's right!” His voice is suddenly so loud that she jumps a bit, and then he ends up coughing for about thirty seconds. “That's right, I'm an idiot...you're so smart, you know that, doll? You're so _so_ smart, I don't know how I ever got a little genius like you, I really don't...” He smiles a tired smile, and she's pleased with the compliment, even if it is another exaggeration.

“Rest,” she urges him, and he nods, looking adorably determined before finally closing his eyes. A few moments later, he's drifted off, and she picks up a book and begins to read.

~X~

After about an hour, she hears him groaning, and then he looks up at her. “Lua...” he whines, his voice sounding even worse than before. “Lua, you're still here, right? Yeah, you are, I can see you...”

“How do you feel?” she asks. His face is still flushed, and she gets up to put her hand to his forehead, testing for a fever.

“Like there's rocks in my head, and I'm gonna die,” he replies. He leans into her touch, smiling despite himself, and she presses the back of her hand against his forehead, brushing his bangs out of the way. Their damp with sweat, and so is his skin, and he's absolutely burning up. She straightens up, turning to get something for him, and he lets out a long, broken wail that makes her cringe.

“ _Luuuaaaa_ , where are you _going_?” he cries. “You're not just gonna leave me here, are you? You're leaving me here to die!” She knows, she _knows_ , that he's just being melodramatic because he feels bad, and that the fever isn't helping matters and that he's not entirely lucid, but still, she feels her frustration growing.

“I'll be right back,” she promises, keeping her voice level. “I'm getting something for you.”

“My angel,” he mumbles. “Aw, god, you're so sweet you might make me cry!” He's still rambling when she leaves the room, but she doesn't stick around to listen to it and instead goes to fetch a cloth to run under cool water, and some medicine for him to take. She needs to get his fever down, and maybe then he might feel better, or at least well enough that he won't insist that he's dying.

“You're back!” he cries as soon as she returns, and his voice breaks. He's going to lose his voice if he isn't careful, but he didn't listen to her the last time she said it, so she isn't sure how much good telling him a second time will do. So she just hands him a few pills and a glass of water, and he takes them without complaining before laying back and allowing her to rest the cloth on his forehead.

“I hate laying around all day,” he complains. “I could be doing anything right now, but I'm stuck here and I hate it! Do you think this will ever end? I feel like I'm dying, Lua, when's it gonna be over?”

He'd started exhibiting symptoms the night before, and woken up proclaiming that his life was over and that he was too young and had too much to do to succumb to illness at a time like this. It's entirely likely that he'll be almost completely better in the morning, and she tells him as much, but this doesn't offer him much comfort. Lua sighs, letting him go on about how it's unfair, and how he doesn't want to die and how his head feels heavy and his eyes hurt, until a lot of time has passed and he finally goes silent. He hardly has a voice left, and it's scratchy and cuts out when he tries to get too loud, but he only rests it for a moment before he speaks up again.

“My throat hurts,” he says. _I wonder why_ , she thinks, and the response is on her tongue, but she bites it back. “It hurts so much, it's so unfair. I think I'm fucking dying, you know that?”

“It's unfair?” she asks at last. “Would it be more fair if my throat hurt too?”

His eyes widen and he stammers, “N-no, Lua, that isn't...oh, no! That's not what I meant at all, I'm glad you're not sick, I-” He stops short, wincing, and she takes that opportunity to interrupt him, something she would normally have quite a lot of trouble doing.

“I meant if you made it hurt,” she says, and he takes a moment, his face screwing up in confusion before it relaxes, realization dawning on him.

“ _Oh_ ,” he says, and really smiles, big and fierce, for the first time since he woke up that morning, wailing about his impending death. “Yeah, baby? Is that what it is? You just wanna play a little, and you think just cos I'm sick that I can't pay any attention to you. Or maybe all this talk about me dying has you feeling a little jealous. Is that it, Lua? Well, don't you worry about a thing.” He sits up, letting his cool cloth fall aside. “There's no way I'm going to let this stupid cold kill me before I'm good and ready to kill you, and I'm sure as hell not letting it get in the way of me taking care of you.”

“Come sit next to me,” he says, and she does, and they angle their bodies so that they can face each other and he can wrap his hands around her throat. “Oh, yeah,” he says, as he begins to squeeze. “Yeah, you're definitely, _definitely_ gonna have a sore throat when I'm done with you.”

He takes his time, and a look of determination crosses his previously glassy eyes. She can't tell if his fever is coming down or not, but he seems more lucid, at the very least, and at this particular moment, she can't bring herself to care. It isn't long before she finds herself completely unable to breathe, and then her vision is clouding and it's only Ladd in front of her, and then even he starts to fade away. Her thoughts are coming to her more and more slowly now, but she manages to wonder if he's going to go far enough to allow her to pass out this time or if...

  
Air rushes back into her lungs suddenly, her body acting on it's own, her mouth gasping for air and her lungs burning as his hands suddenly let go. She doesn't even realize he's allowing her to breathe until she already has, until she's already stopped herself from passing out. There's a thrill that always accompanies being brought so close to death, and it just barely manages to outweigh the disappointment that, once again, he didn't go all the way.

He gives her a minute to really regain her composure before he says, “Now, how about that?” The only things to really give away that he's sick are his flushed cheeks and the way his voice is still rough and the way he keeps sniffing; his energy seems to have returned to him and he's just as lively as ever. “How about  _that_ ? Huh? I'm not too bad at that even when I'm sick, huh? Does it hurt?”

She nods, reaching a hand to touch where he was holding her just moments before, and she thinks about how badly she wants him now. To have him bring her so close like that, to really  _tease_ her with what she wants most in the world...it's understandable that she's left wanting to work out her frustrations in other ways, but she says nothing. He's sick and she doesn't want to push him too hard, and even if that weren't the case, she's never been direct with her desires, never puts it into words.

Of course, that's mostly because he can read her, making it very easy to be as reserved as she is, and even now, he can read her well enough that when she shifts, ever so slightly, he knows exactly what's on her mind. Or maybe it's just too obvious, considering he nearly choked her out, but whatever the case, when he looks at her, she can tell that he  _knows_ .

“If you being sick didn't stop us, I don't see why it matters that I'm sick,” he says. “I already told you that I'm not letting it get in the way of me taking care of you. Hey!” His face brightens, and he seems excited by his realization. “Ya know, you've been taking care of me all, such good care of me! Maybe this is just how I pay you back...”

She doesn't tell him that it might make him worse, or that, when she gets close to him, she can feel that he's still burning up, and she doesn't tell him that her taking care of him could be seen as her returning the favor for when  _he_ took care of her when she had this little bug. She doesn't tell him any of that, and she doesn't let herself worry about the fact that it really could end up making him feel worse; he'll be better by morning, anyway, and with how he teased her with choking her, she really can't help herself anymore.

 


End file.
